Tom Meyer sent us this photo and  lengthy love letter: “The photo is of this 64 year old geezer finishing  the Bluzcruz  Canoe and Kayak Marathon at Vicksburg, Mississippi, after 22 miles on the Big Muddy. Note the RailRiders AdventureTop is keeping me cool both literally and figuratively. That shirt and the unseen RailRiders Weatherpants under my spray skirt are favorites for kayaking whether I’m racing or touring

Since a stint in Special Forces 40 years ago I’ve made it a habit of going off the beaten track pursuing adventure in diverse climes ranging from Montana to the Buffalo River to the Gulf Coast Barrier Islands to Kenya to Saudi Arabia to the Golden Triangle in north Thailand. I embraced the revolution in technical fabrics that was the catalyst for a huge paradigm shift in what we expect from outdoor clothing and equipment.

All that being said, it seemed for a decade or so that most of the R&D went into equipment, not clothing. Sure, I rejoiced at being freed from jeans and t-shirts made of cotton “death cloth”. However, it was basically the same old clothing, just better fabric. While tents, packs, and other equipment enjoyed a plethora of new bells and whistles, clothing seemed to be satisfied with tech fabric versions of denim and cotton t-shirts.  RailRiders has changed that. Continue reading →

Photojournalist travel writer Dennis Aprill wearing RailRiders VersaTac Light pants in the Anvil Range of the central Yukon Territory of Canada while pursuing very uncommon Fannin mountain sheep found only in this region. Underneath the wind parka, Aprill wore a RailRiders Regulator Wind shirt. “The VersaTac pants not only served me well on the Yukon trip,” says Aprill, “but I relied on them a month later when photographing polar bears on Hudson Bay.”